Library › Metropolitan Platon of Moscow › Orthodox Doctrine (Summary of Christian Divinity)

Orthodox Doctrine (Summary of Christian Divinity)

Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, tr. Pinkerton, 1814

10. Part 2, Section 10: There are Good and Evil Angels

This God, worshipped in three persons, created this world and all things in it, visible and invisible.

Of the creation of the world, and of other circumstances belonging to creation, we have already spoken in the First Part, under Section vi. Here it is only necessary to speak of things invisible, namely, of Angels. There are two kinds of angels, good and bad. The good, being most pure and holy spirits, always enjoy the glorious presence of God in light. “Their angels do always behold the face of my Father, which is in heaven,” Matth. xviii. 10. They perfectly obey the will of God, Psalm ciii. 21. And are employed in promoting the salvation of men. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them, who shall be heirs of salvation?” Heb. i. 14.

But evil angels, who were created along with the good, destroyed their original holiness, by wilfully falling into sin; and from a most glorious, were thrust down into a most wretched condition. “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day,” Jude 6. They were then deprived of all hope, and, wretched as they are, yet they find a pleasure in enticing mankind into sin; alluring them by their temptations into the same state of perdition into which they themselves are fallen. Of this we are informed by St Peter, “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour,” 1 Peter v. 8. “This kind,” according to the words of Christ, “goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting.”